The names we choose. . .

. . .and the little mouths that try to say them. I've been thinking a lot about baby names lately. My husband and I have a pact. If it's a girl, I choose. If it's a boy, he chooses. Simple. I've already got my girl name picked out. I'm about 95 percent sure. Every one I tell tries to sound nice about it, but I know they don't really like it. Even my mother, whose name is included in this choice of mine, doesn't like it. "It'll grow on me. Just like Bianca did." She tries to console me. Or is she consoling herself? Hmmmm.

And she didn't like the name Bianca when I first chose it over five years ago. Few people did. I was warned by everyone. "Are you sure?" But I was sure. It was the one time my husband and I completely agreed on something. Bianca Elizabeth. A whole mouthful of a name for such a small baby of six pounds. And she grew right into that name, as if any other name would have been as mismatched as the outfits Bianca puts together.

When she turned two, I got a real laugh, though, out of her little friends trying to say her name. Here is a list of things Bianca was called:

Binca; Bonca (both of which eventually inspired the little ditty we sing to her sometimes even now which goes "Binca, Bonca, makes Bianca"--yes, we're kind of a weird little family); BIanca (with long I sound, like Bionic); Ganca; BiGanca; Biaca; and last, but not least, Bilancala, which her two-year-old cousin repeatedly called her when we visited in California this summer.

Don't get me wrong. I actually think it's all pretty funny. Now, very few of her friends say her name wrong. And when I think of her, nothing but Bianca would have worked for my precocious five-year-old. It's the perfect name.

Of course we all probably think that. But the question is: does your child grow into the name or does the name evolve in your mind to be like your child? What do you think?

Oh, and by the way, if you'd like to know the 95-percent-sure name for a baby girl, just ask and I'll tell you, as long as you promise not to say "Are you sure?"

Musings

When Bianca was two, I became pregnant with Miranda. The realization that I was pregnant came one week after I'd started a new job, as my husband was out of work, and I thought the pregnancy couldn't have come at a worst time.

Eric stayed home with Bianca while I worked and he looked for a job. I'd always been home with Bianca before that. I'd made a decision that I would be at home with my children, as much as I wanted to do the career thing.

But as financial necessity required, I went back to work and worked full time pretty much until a couple days before Miranda was born. When Eric's job opportunities finally panned out. Call it a miracle; if you're the religious type, call it God telling me that he was keeping us in mind; call it a coincidence. Whatever you call it, I came home and stayed there with my kids after Miranda was born.

When Bianca found out I was pregnant this time, she asked me when I was going back to work.

Funny how kids associate things together, things that wouldn't normally go together. Like I have to be at work to be pregnant. Hopefully I've fixed her perception on the pregnancy thing--that I don't have to go back to work this time. (Well, except for the really part-time thing I'm doing.)

But the funny thing is, I worried a little as we were trying that if we did get pregnant, Eric would lose his job. Maybe it's not just kids with the strange associations.

Will I Shine or Get Stuck in the Headlights?

I've been given a chance to do something. And I feel like I'm about to walk on stage knowing all my lines and choke. Just stand there with a deer-in-the-headlights look. If you saw me tonight, you'd see it too.

Some of my earliest blog readers will remember a time I nearly choked tears out of a blog over an injustice in my very own hometown of Herriman, Utah, after realizing they were holding soccer games at the cemetery where my Miranda is buried. No one would listen to me. So I offered to write a story for the Herriman Herald, a brand new newspaper in the city, so I could have my voice heard. The soccer games were stopped shortly after.

I continued writing for this newspaper as a volunteer. I didn't need money. I did it for several reasons. First, I liked having my thoughts read by other people and I liked even more when people would come up to me and tell me what they thought about what I wrote, whether they agreed with me or not. Second, I love writing. Third, I was keeping my resume current (you know a person out of the workforce loses 50 percent of her earning potential after two years) and building my portfolio. Fourth, it's something to focus on when my main other focus was grieving over my daughter.

But last month, I wrote an article on a city production of Bye, Bye Birdie. Not only did I think the musical wasn't very good, but I felt it was painful to sit through. I'd seen high school productions that were more professional. It was painful to watch, but not as painful as trying to sound optimistic while writing an article about it. I tried to bring out its good points (which were few) and leave out its bad (which were many). I turned it in. Several weeks later, the paper appeared in my mailbox. The front page was a glowing review of Bye, Bye Birdie with two full pages of color pictures from the play. The article wasn't my article at all. Wait, I take that back. One paragraph, which was my synopisis of the Bye-Bye-Birdie storyline, was mine. Nothing else. But the real problem was that my name was on this article, along with the man's who runs the paper.

I emailed him explaining how upset I was that my name was attached to something that didn't represent my feelings at all. The email back implied that I wasn't enthusiastic enough about the production and they felt they needed to spice it up a little. That's fine, but don't put my name on it.

Then Sunday night, a very thoughtful and very-well-connected neighbor called me and suggested I write for a paper that is credible and will actually pay me to write for them. I was all ears. Of course that's a better situation. I jumped on it. He called a friend of his, an editor for the Salt Lake Tribune's Close Up section in my area, and suggested I free lance for him. I called the editor the very next day and he sent out contractor paperwork for me to fill out.

The papers came yesterday. I leafed through them and was excited. Now I'm starting to get anxious: I have not a thought in my head. I don't know what it is--the pressure, the chance I have to write for something credible, but I'm drawing a blank. I'm supposed to come up with story ideas about my community, specifically the Herriman area, and the one piece of advice is "Think People." I want to have some great ideas, but everything that comes to my mind has already been done or isn't good enough to land me a return offer to write for them. I'm having writer's bloc, and I haven't even started writing yet.

I'm skeptical. Maybe I should just stay where there's no pressure, no money, and no credibility. Am I good enough for this? Sometimes I think it's my chance to get somewhere better, sometimes I think I'm going to flop. Right now, I think you can probably guess what I'm thinking. I need ideas. I need a good story. And I need . . . some confidence.

Queen for the Day

Yesterday was Bianca's 5th birthday. And I'd heard this idea from a friend that she lets her kids be queen (or king) for the day on their birthdays. They get everything they want to eat, don't have to clean up--just get everything a child desires.

I've been feeling a little guilty since I didn't let Bianca have a birthday party this year (too much work to have 12 four and five year olds running around my house) so I thought this would do it. It'd make her feel special without a big party.

So I told her that she was queen yesterday. She loved it. She wore a crown. She went to breakfast with her dad before kindergarten, then we brought donuts to her kindergarten class, so when I picked her up and brought her home, she was so stuffed she didn't want lunch. I didn't make her eat anything. But she pretty much grazed on snack foods and candy all afternoon. She picked her favorite dinner, which incidentally is cheese brats, and then I made her cupcakes--chocolate cake with white icing & sprinkles. Just as she'd picked out at the store.

We didn't do much else--just opened presents, let her stay up a little later to play with her new toys, and then put her to bed.

This morning, I got a phone call that Bianca threw up in the carpool on the way to school. She was coming home.

Maybe this whole Queen-for-a-day thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. She can be queen for her birthday, but will probably be throwing up the next day. Sounded like a great idea, but I urge any of you who likes the idea to use with caution.

A Nap and a Map

Lately, between two and three each afternoon, I'm so tired that all I can think about is stealing away and getting a short nap. I know this has something to do with pregnancy, so I try to give in to my desire for a nap.

Yesterday, when the magical time appeared, I asked Bianca if I could put in a movie and take a short nap. "No, I want to read books." I'm not one ever to say no to books (it seems like lately, everytime I ask if I can read to Bianca, she says no--she'd rather ride her bike or play Uno or anything other than read, so I take advantage of it when she says yes.) So, we sat in the recliner chair and started reading.

First, she picked "Tuff Fluff" (which I'm sure nobody's heard of but is about a stuffed duck who loses his brain, while a detective is trying to figure out where it's gone, all of this is happening at 3:29 a.m.). I read the whole thing and reclined the chair a bit to get a little more comfortable. Next, she picked "Good Night Gorilla" (when I saw the zookeeper's wife all nestled in her blankets in bed, I was eyeing her pillow jealously and my eyes seriously started drooping). Bianca then picked "Stellaluna" (which is about a bat who tries to fight against his natural bat urge to stay awake in the night and be more like the family of birds that raises him). Do you see a connection here? Because I certainly did. Every book Bianca picked made me more and more tired.

Finally, we came to the stapled together book that the reading teacher sent home from school on Monday, called "A Nap and a Map." Sure, I can understand it. Those are easy words to sound out. N-A-P, nap! Bianca loves to read it. But every picture in that book had a bear taking a nap in a pan or on a map. (I worry about rereading the book too many times as Bianca has a tendency to memorize very quickly, so I won't know if she's actually reading it or not.)

By the end of "A Nap and a Map," I finally convinced Bianca that it was time. Time to put a movie in and time for me to go lie down in my bed. And she went for it. She was even so good as to tell anyone who called on the phone that I couldn't be disturbed because I was napping.

It felt good. I needed the nap. And at the end of all that torturous reading, I would have been just as likely to fall asleep in a pan or on a map as in my bed.